Jockey Robert Thornton celebrates after winning the Champion Hurdle on Katchit at the 2008 Cheltenham Festival. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters

If you are going to have a short break from race-riding, a couple of weeks in January and February when half the meetings seem to be called off anyway is probably as good a time as any. Robert Thornton, though, does not see it like that.

"It's not ideal at any time," he said yesterday. "When I had the fall [on 26 January] they said it could be three or four weeks and now I'm looking to be back next Wednesday. But I'd ride on Saturday, though there's no way that they'd let me. To be honest, I've probably ridden when I've had more discomfort than I have now."

Thornton had ridden four winners from his previous six rides when he climbed aboard Cracboumwiz at Leicester a week ago and had every chance of making it five from seven when his partner galloped straight through the third-last. Thornton was thrown clear, but suffered severe bruising to his back when landing many yards past the obstacle.

It was just the latest misfortune in what has already been a frustrating season, with Thornton dropping down the jockeys' table from what had become his accustomed top-three position. Alan King, his main employer, has been struggling to get his horses into peak form all season and, just as the string seemed to be turning the corner, Thornton has been forced to sit and watch.

"I take my hat off to Alan for the great job he's done," Thornton says. "It's been well documented that there's been a problem, but hopefully it's getting sorted if it hasn't been sorted already, and the horses are definitely running a lot better now than they were earlier on in the season.

"All through that run of form, the percentages were not too bad. He's never once been on the [Racing Post's] cold list during that time and nor have I. But the horses just weren't finishing their races. They would look well, travel great and jump really well, but then you would get down to the business end and, whereas Alan's horses will always fight and find another gear, they just weren't doing that."

Thornton's midweek target for a return is not a date plucked from the air. The three days afterwards will see several of King's main contenders for the Cheltenham Festival going on trial, including Mille Chief, the ante-post favourite for the Triumph Hurdle, who is due to run at Huntingdon next Thursday.

"There's a little bit of pressure on the both of us to get them there now," Thornton says. "We've got to get runs into a few of them, for match practice as much as anything.

"Mille Chief is one and The Betchworth Kid [a recent gamble for the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle] is another, he's due to run the following day, and Voy Por Ustedes and Bakbenscher the day after that. Bensalem [a possible for the RSA Chase] tipped up at Haydock last time and he needs a hunt round somewhere."

King has shown a great deal of patience with his horses so far this season, which may well be repaid further down the line, though, no matter how the rest of the season unfolds, Thornton is resigned to losing his familiar position towards the top of the championship.

"Sometimes when you get a run like ours, you find that one or two of them come out the other end well-handicapped, but at somewhere like Cheltenham that might just mean that you don't get into the race at all and really we'd have been much happier to have been kicking on as normal throughout the season," he said.

"I'm a long way off where I've been for the last five years and I'm afraid whatever happens, in the numerical respect the season has gone. All I'm looking to do now is to get as many winners and as much prize money as possible in the rest of the season and then focus on getting back up there next time around."